May the 4th be with us.....

Thank you Joe for your update on the May release date. Looks like it will be a happy fourth for all of us!

May the 4th...

Considering the likely overlap with Star Wars nerds, if the issue is late can you expect Revenge of the Fifth??

Hah hah

Hah hah.

Looking like it will be later on the 4th. My only excuse is we've laid off much of the editorial staff, so my wife and I are it right now, other than the two news and events guys, Jeff and Richard. With the events section pretty much out the window for now, they can just focus on hobby news, so they're the slackers now (wink and grin).

No worries

It gets here when it gets here...

Clarence

nice weather expected tomorrow, so...

I gotta mow the lawn anyway. 

 Take your time, hang in there, we'll always be able to read it Tuesday evening.

Janet N.

Okay its up

Okay, the May issue is up.

You may notice some different behavior in the online edition.

This is the first step in moving to a simpler, comprehensive online interface for all issues.

Effectively, you access the magazine using a bookshelf (like the app and the hub, if you've seen it) and there is only one version. You can get either a landscape view or a portrait view depending on how wide your screen is. You select a download link below the cover to download the issue.

We need to show folks how to get a landscape-like view in your PDF reader, but essentially, we drop down to a single version for everything.

Am I dense?

Up where?  "Get current issue" still gets April

We are still in soft-release

Hate the Page turning

Dump the Page turning!!!  It's ridiculous!

Robert

New online viewer

Some nice features there.  The page turning doesn’t bug me.  The download button in the online viewer gets me the portrait pdf even if I’m looking at the online view in landscape mode, which seems wrong.  The zoom control has problems on an iPad.  It zooms in and out, but there is no way to control what you zoom in on, and you can’t drag around to see different parts of the page when you are zoomed in.

The share thing is nice.  The print function could be useful, but I haven’t tried it yet.  I do have my iPad set up so I can print stuff from it, it will be interesting to see if this viewer does the right thing with that.

Better page turning effect

Actually, it's different in different browsers. If you dislike the page turning, it goes away if you use the Microsoft Edge browser.

We're moving to a different vendor for the online edition, and we would like the option to turn off the page flip, but we have yet to see if that's possible.

We're dropping the landscape version eventually

Actually, we will be dropping the landscape version, but first we need to do a how-to video with the portrait version to show how to get a two-up spread that looks just like the landscape version in your PDF readers.

Until we can make the how-to video, we won't be dropping the landscape version -- but trust me, with a few tricks, the portrait version looks just like the landscape version.

The benefit for us is we can drop back to just one version of the magazine, which simplifies our life. It also makes it simpler for you, our readers. Now you just download "the magazine" and you're done. Want two-up pages in your PDF reader? No problem, here's how -- hey, look ma, it's just like the landscape version!

get portrait view despite wide screen

When I read the May issue online the only view that comes up is portrait even though the screen is 24" (diagonal) and have read previous issues in landscape. Can only zoom in discrete steps and image quickly gets pixelated.   

  "When I read the May issue

I get the same wasted space effect on my chromebook's 11 inch screen. I have to zoom in a bit to read the portrait mode view but it's a touch screen so not that big a problem. The page turning and general stability of the new version is better than the old one so far, I haven't had this new one crash or hang up yet like the old one would occasionally do when the edition was first published( seems it would get better as the first days were behind it) . I'm happy with whatever it takes to keep the magazine moving forward,anything is better than having to go back to paper magazines :> ) ...DaveB

Single -> double page

Easy to do in desktop adobe acrobat, but I don’t see how in either ios adobe acrobat or books, which are the two readers I use on my ipad.  I look forward to your how to.  I can certainly understand the advantage of only producing a single PDF!

Device and browser please ...

You're aware that the cover is portrait, but once you dive into the magazine, it should be a two page spread on a wide screen, right?

What device type and browser is this?

Device = PC, Mac, Tablet (brand), Phone (brand)
Browser = Chrome, Firefox, MS Edge, Safari, other ...

Once we know some details of your environment, then we can offer troubleshooting advice.

Couple tricks right off the bat:

• Try closing and restarting your browser
• Try a different browser

but trust me, with a few

That really depends on the PDF viewer that you use. I usually use muPDF on both my Linux systems and my tablet. It doesn't have a 2-up mode. I can probably find a tool somewhere that converts the portrait version to landscape though (by stitching together pairs of pages).

BTW, I read most mags in portrait mode, because they are just PDF versions of paper magazines, and are too small if you view them 2-up on a tablet. But MRH and RE were designed for on-screen reading from day one, so they look way too big in portrait mode, hence I read them in landscape mode. 

Please keep Landscape!!

I read the magazine exclusively on my iPad Pro and always use the device in the landscape format.  Portrait format, especially in two-pages-per-view, makes the print and photos too small.  Zooming to read each page is a Royal PITA.

2 × MRH Portrait = MRH Landscape

Jeff, but in the case of MRH, two pages per screen, each in portrait format, should be identical to the landscape format. From my measurements, MRH effectively uses metric sized virtual paper (1:√2 aspect ratio), so that two side-by-side portrait pages are the same shape as one landscape page, and any PDF viewer than can display two side-by-side MRH portrait pages should display something that looks exactly like one MRH landscape page.

For regular paper magazines also available electronically, this isn't the case. The text is sized to be read on an 8½×11" or 9×12" page, and already looks small on a 10" tablet, and way too small if you view two such pages side by side.

Zoom

The zoom button doesn't "slide" - you click "plus" and get an incremental zoom.  Original size is too small on my 15" laptop screen; one click on the zoom button and it is too big, so you have to scroll.

Then, when advancing a page, it reverts back to the "no zoom" status.  So you have to zoom each page?  And then scroll around to see the whole page?

Doesn't seem very user friendly to me.

This is viewing on line, btw.

Al Carter, Mount Vernon, WA

iBooks

I read the magazine in iBooks.

iPadOS acrobat and books

I did a bit of googling and poking around and so far as I can tell it's not possible to view a pdf with 2 pages side by side in either acrobat or books (ibooks) on an iPad.  If there's a trick that lets you do it in either one I'm eager to know - that would make a few other pdfs I occasionally refer to on my iPad a bit nicer to view.

May 2020 Running Extra

I haven't got the usual e-mail telling me I can download RE.  How do I tell if my subscription has expired?  My account screen doesn't tell me anything.

Mark in Melbourne

Emails sent

The new issue email from SendOwl, our provider, has been sent. We show that you never open these emails, so that means they're going to spam on your end.

Kinda hard to email you something if it keeps going to spam. Look for an email from noreply@sendowl.com ... add that email address to your email contacts to tell your email program that this is a from address you WANT email from.

Finally, the email is only a reminder, when you signed up, you got your subscription page link and we told you to bookmark it. Each month just revisit that link and the next new issue will be listed at the top for download. That link never changes.

In the next day or two, we will be sending out an email updating you with your expiry date info. If you are expiring, we will also email you a renew link.

So hang on, we'll take care of you! Those emails come from store@mrhmag.com, so also make sure emails from there aren't going to spam either. Add that email to your contacts list to tell your email program to stop sending those emails to spam, but to deliver them because it's a from email you have as a contact!